Territorial Warnings
by Moon's Meow
Summary: The Graceful Assassin decided to explore an unfamiliar domain, the library. However, he soon learned that rules drastically change when one enters the territory of another.


Territorial Warnings

The clunking of black boots echoed through the endless white halls. There was also the swishing of a black cloak's edges against black pants legs, as well as the small chinking of the silver drawstrings against each other. Shoulder-length, pink hair brushed against the rim of the lowered hood, and the man continued his way down the corridor.

Silence soon spoke as he stopped in front of a pair of white doors. He opened the doors with his black gloved hands and entered a vast room filled with shelves that nearly touched the ceiling; each shelve was packed with heavy hard-covered books.

Marluxia scanned the library thoughtfully with his blue eyes. Larxene would commonly escape here and then reappear with a book to read as she lounged on the couch. He decided it was time to explore this rarely-visited-room. It's quiet and peaceful, Marluxia thought as he took a few steps in. But much too life-less. It was too quiet. Dead.

The smell of paper and ink was hardly a thrilling scent for him. Much unlike a garden, he felt bored and foreign in a library. But he knew that with books, what was important were the words and the message. Books were ideas and thoughts from one's head to pen on paper for another to read and put in their heads, to share.

Of course, to him, the idea, the story, the thoughts were only alive within the mind. A plant was a being, a living thing. They were creatures, and a part of nature. Books were only mere imagination and words.

Marluxia continued into the room, where he saw white tables with white chairs that were neatly lined up in the center of the room with the shelves standing all around them. He looked at the tables; they were all bare, and all the more life-less to him. Marluxia pursed his lips together and put a hand on the corner of a table. His thoughts of finding a book to read were dismissed as he then started to turn back to the door. He paused mid-turn when colors at the back of the room caught his eye. Past the aisle of books, there was a doorway with red, brown and light shades of yellow within it. He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. Out of curiosity, he released the table edge and began to cross the room.

Marluxia carefully entered through the doorway and looked around. It was long and narrow, with the wall in front of him only a few strides away and the walls at his sides were much farther apart. His feet shifted on the red and white decorated carpet. He glanced at the small, wooden table by his right that had a lit candle on a brass stand. There were matching dark brown shelves lined up against the yellow-colored walls all around him. Old, wrinkled documents written in cursive ink were spread out on top of the short shelves. Marluxia walked over to a shelve in front of him and slid his fingers against the hard, beaten rim of a thick book that was stacked together with similar books that Marluxia never even heard of.

His hand slowly recoiled and he shut his slightly open mouth when he realized that this library was probably for the founding members, who had been under apprenticeship of Ansem the Wise. Marluxia remained where he was, but his eyes slid over to his left. When catching a dark color in the room, his head turned in the direction.

There were a few square, dark brown tables laid out in the room, side-by-side so then someone could still move past them to other parts of the shelves. He saw a boy, who wore the same cloak as him. He had bangs covering the side of his face that Marluxia faced and his hair had the shade of periwinkle. He had one of the pieces of literature opened out in front of him, and his black boots dangled an inch above the carpet. Zexion. He was someone Marluxia would completely expect to be here since Zexion was one of Ansem's apprentices. He was known for his large vocabulary, the fact he tended to have his nose stuck in a book and his weapon, the Lexicon.

Marluxia gave a small grin, but he had a bit of a loathing air around himself. Zexion had probably already scented him when he walked into the library, or even when he was heading towards it in the hall.

"My, quite a collection," Marluxia spoke up as he looked back at the boy. Zexion did not move and nor did he turn the page of the book, as if he were still reading.

Zexion's narrow, sky blue eye looked up from the words on the ink pages. Considering all of Marluxia moments in the past few minutes, he had wanted to leave but wandered in by curiosity, Zexion thought. His compliment was deceptive for casualness. Zexion's eye fell back to the page and his back relaxed against the back of the chair.

"So, do you admire it?" Zexion asked with uninterested but pointed tone. Marluxia drew in a silent breath, and his chest lowered when he quietly breathed back out. How the Cloaked Schemer fazed him to no end. The boy seemed nearly all-knowing with the countless observations crowding his ticking little mind. His anger disappearing in brief shivers throughout his body, Marluxia quickly retrieved his innocent mask.

"Well, it's just that these book appear to hold knowledge that's out of my reach," Marluxia answered calmly, and, once again, his blue eyes set on Zexion like stones to crush with. Zexion kept his gaze on his book and put his finger to his lips in thought. Marluxia's eyes were beginning to inwardly bloom into something malevolent. Zexion turned the page with his gloved hand and the sound of the folding parchment broke the silence, but it caused Marluxia's lips to twitch slightly.

"Really. One would usually choose to pursue the knowledge of which they do not understand, as is human nature." Zexion replied, his hand gently gripping his own chin, then his eyes slid in Marluxia's direction, though he wasn't looking past his hair, directly at the man, "Of course, there are cases where one does not wish to learn about what they are not interested in."

Marluxia felt as though Zexion had been reading him a passage from the book. Was he referring to Marluxia's reason for being in the library? Curiosity? He only smiled in response, with his eyes to the ground as he crossed his arms. Number VI or not, Marluxia thought. I will not be treated as an underling.

"Yes, but a person can always learn something from anything. I suppose…it just depends what they're learning," Marluxia stated. Zexion's eyes widened and he inwardly tensed at his tone. Where was he going with this? Marluxia then took a step forward, and Zexion's skin prickled.

Zexion turned his head slightly towards Marluxia, but not enough for them to exchange glances. His hand fell back beside the book, "I suppose you're comparing it to how agreeable someone can be to accept something, then?"

"Exactly. It's usually based off of one's beliefs and opinions, how they are told in order to convince them," Marluxia answered as he continued towards Zexion, with them soon only a few strides away. Zexion froze, not in chilling fear, but in dark, cooling contempt. In slow realization, Zexion could see Marluxia intention to corner him, to convince him for his acceptance, and shape his control.

"You mean to enslave me?" Zexion muttered calmly. Marluxia smiled as he saw Zexion bunched together in tension and the boy's question shown his realization to the situation. Perhaps, some persuasion, with or without force, will be enough to break his resistance.

"No, not enslave. I only want your opinion," Marluxia assured as he neared to several steps away. I want your opinion, so I can twist it to complement my cause, Marluxia thought maliciously.

The candle flickered.

Suddenly, Zexion stood up, and whipped around towards Marluxia. The pink-haired man assumed that Zexion was going to summon his weapon to defend himself, but, no, instead he stood his ground. Marluxia could also see that, since he and Zexion could now meet eyes, there was an intense glimmer of hostility in his sky blue eyes.

Marluxia stopped with a quizzical look at Zexion, but the boy did not waver. Finally, Zexion lowered his gaze but now his words were wielded as weapons, like how one might feel as a wizard speaks a spell.

"Marluxia, as people would not wish to anger you within a garden," Zexion spoke lowly, "you should not threaten me within my domain."

The boy glared at him again, and he put his hand over the table. The thick lexicon appeared under his palm, and an unnatural wind blew through the library, causing the pages of books to flutter rapidly. It was as if Zexion could control a force within the books, as if they hissed at Marluxia with their pages. The man could not feel an actual draft, as there was none to begin with, but the flittering of paper gave him that illusion.

Marluxia's confidence slowly slipped away, and his smile turned into a closed snarl. However, the shiver on his spine was the common sense in him. He could see Zexion's near glowing eye, the hand on his weapon, and the shadows that seemed to gather behind him. One would not want to gain the wrath of a master of illusions, who could unwind one's sanity.

"I can see that," Marluxia begrudgingly admitted. With his fingers itching to lash out at the Cloaked Schemer, Marluxia turned and walked out of the library without another word said.


End file.
